RSCM Report: Part Two

For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building… But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any many build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. (I Corinthians 3:9-13)

I have often called upon this passage as a plumb line for my work, properly so. But much of our work is together, including choral work. There is enough music of the wood, hay, and stubble variety in the world; how can we as a group build with gold, silver, and precious stones? We who ourselves are dust and ashes, individually and together?

We can rehearse. We can build our skill level in various ways: lessons, scales and exercises, study. We can indeed become extremely good, like that semiprofessional choir on the eve of the Course. And we may find that for all our perfection we are “as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” (I Cor. 13:1) For “if I have not charity, I am nothing” (v. 2).

It has something to do with what I call Connection, following my teacher Dr. Flummerfelt. Some others, including one of the composers we sang this week, call it Attitude:

When singing, are you connected to the text and musical line with all of your being? Or are you going through the motions? It might be possible for instrumentalists to sometimes get away with the latter, but the voice is so thoroughly a window into the soul that it is immediately obvious if the singers are not Connected -- and, if the other basics are in place and the group has done its homework, Connection makes it possible for the song to touch the hearts of the listeners. This will never happen if the hearts of the singers are not likewise touched by the Song and absolutely committed to it. [from RSCM Report 2015]

But it also has to do with brokenness.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. (II Corinthians 4:7-10)

A perfect singer, confident in her ability, not a trouble in the world, will not have this treasure. There are not enough cracks for the light to shine through. Those who are carrying health issues, personal or family burdens, a broken heart, those who are derided and ostracized by their peers, or hungry and tired, without money for food and shelter – their song has the potential to become gold, silver, precious stones.

But not in their own strength. Not at all; if you ask such a singer if they are doing well, they will probably sigh and say “I wish! I am not any good at all. Everything I do is wrong, my best efforts are incomplete.”

The Swedish poet Karin Boye gives part of the answer, in an evening prayer we sang during the Course, set to music by Egil Hovland:

… for I know that you can finish what I found of joy or sorrow. All my harmful thoughts and actions, heal and make them new and wholesome. Take my days and make them over. Come, transform their dust to diamond. (translation by Gracia Grindal)

Perhaps the only way we can build the song with precious stones is to begin with dust - the burnt remains of the days in which we feel that we did nothing worthwhile, the hours of work where we have made no visible progress or gone backwards, the hurtful or foolish things we have thought, said, and done. “Come, transform their dust to diamond.”

Perhaps the reason such a song, and such singers, will have Connection and be able to sing truth that touches the hearts of those who hear it, is that the listeners likewise are earthen vessels, broken open so that they might receive the grace of God.

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Thursday, July 18

As torrents in summer,
Half-dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, tho’ the sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been falling
Far off at their fountains;

So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o’erflowing,
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining!
(H. W. Longfellow, set to music by Edward Elgar)

I am “half-dried in my channel.” Year after year I have sought to do the work that is set before me, to make the liturgy and music better than they would be without me, to teach the Story and the Song to young and old. I am worn out. The Eucharistic liturgy for which I provide music every Sunday brings me little joy, little sustenance. It is “always winter, never Christmas,” as Lewis wrote of Narnia.

It was thus that I came to this day, discouraged by my bad singing and wrong notes, as well as my years and decades of work. Not even last night’s RSCM Evensong could touch me.

I came to Thursday Matins, organized by my friend Judith. And I was healed. The officiant was HMB, chorister from our parish, my godchild and student. She gets it, as was clear from her careful leadership of the Office. As do many others here this week, old and young. And I have been a small part of that for some of them.

This was also the day for the Course’s celebration of the Holy Eucharist. I have almost stopped taking communion at home. But here, there was dignity in the unaltered Rite Two liturgical text, a proper metal chalice (not pottery, such as we use at home). Music: a psalm and anthem.

Most of all, there was joy.

I joined the line of tenors going up to the front. The Body of Christ. The Cup of Salvation, administered by a friend. The prayers. The sending forth. Then midday meal with my friends the adults of the Course.

I had thought this Course might be my last. But on this day I know that I still belong here.

Rehearsals were more relaxed today, the music beginning to fall into place. The young folk had “water activities” as it said on the information sheet, a part of the week that is awaited with high anticipation.

And there was Evensong, the last of the midweek services, this time a full run-through of Saturday night’s music. I was no longer indifferent to it.

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Of the rest of the week, I need say little. It was very good. Some of the singing at Saturday’s evensong was among the best we have done at a Course, with strong Connection. On Sunday we sang at the Basilica as we have done for some years, this time from the rear gallery. I am told by a trustworthy listener that we sounded “guarded,” and I am inclined to agree. We sang well, but it was hard to connect with a congregation that we could not see. Should we remain in this setting next year, we must find a way to overcome this. But the acoustic placement in the gallery is better, we are not so cramped in, and we have chairs – in the front, we were always crammed onto risers, standing for most of the service. Not in the back; there is enough space for a choir three times our size.

And we are done. I congratulate Michael Velting, our music director for the week, especially noting the manner in which he put the hardest work at the beginning, emphasizing the Preces and Responses and especially the Lord’s Prayer setting in every rehearsal so that by Friday and Saturday, we were comfortable with them. In the same manner, the French diction for the Fauré benefited from an early start and many repetitions. More than that, I admire the manner in which he respected the choristers, expecting the best from them but always treating them with kindness.

The organist for the week, Nick Quardokus, is at this writing in the process of moving to New York City, where he begins work in August as assistant organist of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue. I encourage you to check him out on YouTube, where I have joined his nine subscribers.

Here is his playing of the Bach chorale Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend (BWV 655), a trio that I dearly love and have played several times for church, never as well as he does here.

After the evensong, I told him that I don’t like most of the organ playing I hear. “Most of it has no Connection,” I said. “But you do.”

May it ever be so. And I hope that he posts more of his work on YouTube.

Soli Deo gloria.

P.S. - I poked around a bit more on YouTube and found this:
Duruflé Requiem, with Nicholas at the organ - and it is my RSCM friend Kristin Lensch and her choir, from Calvary Church, Memphis. What an unexpected delight!